Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Searching for solutions

I was able to do two photos this evening!
It wouldn't let me do three, though. I'm not sure that it's blogger. My internet connection has been super slow for a couple of weeks now. I tried to get it re-sent, but when I called in, the whole area was out. Hopefully it will speed up soon.

Here's a picture of Bob playing with Cheese Puff. Glasses have to come off when playing with our chubby little cherub. He likes glasses.

Bob's been really sick. He coughed and coughed last week. I made him a doctor's appointment for yesterday. He went without complaint, and it turned out that he was very sick. He's still not sleeping well due to the coughs, but he says he feels better.

Here our big boys enjoy some watermelon. Baby Plum loves just about all types of fresh fruit -- except for blueberries and raspberries. Little Elvis likes those fruits, but isn't really into other fruits. They agree on watermelon, though

We're battling them both right now, over very different things. Little Elvis has had a very bad attitude recently. He doesn't say please, thank you, ma'am or sir without constant prodding. He makes constant demands. If he puts something in the trash for me, he expects a treat. If he doesn't get his way, he immediately launches into a fit. And he won't stay out of Cheese Puff's face. I can't seem to make him realize that Cheese Puff is not a doll.

But Little Elvis isn't the only one receiving fusses. No. Baby Plum has become quite the escape artist. We've been attempting to put them in the same bedroom for weeks. It's not working at all. Baby Plum just leaves. He wanders around the house. He eats bananas, tries to watch TV, makes a mess in the bathroom, he even brought us the canola oil last night. I think it was dark, and he was trying to find the peanut butter.

We've tried several different tricks to keep him in the room, but usually end up putting him back in the nursery. We moved his crib in there last week. And he learned how to scale the side. Now the crib is back in its old spot. And he's still climbing out of it to explore the house.Nothing deters our little escape artist.

The people I talk to about this all say that their kids that room together have always roomed together, so they've not fought this battle.

Needless to say, I feel like all I'm doing these days is fussing at my older boys. School is about to start and they are nowhere near ready to sleep in the same room.

4 Comments:

We starting putting N and M to bed in the same room about 6 months ago. It's been limitedly successful, so I guess maybe you might want to ignore this, but here was our technique:

We have two regular twin beds in there, one for each boy. M's has sides on it so he can't fall out, but he can climb out quite easily. In the beginning, I found I had to stay in there until both of them fell asleep. Sometimes, I would actually lay down with M to keep him under control. 90% of the time this resulted in both of them falling asleep within 20 minutes or soon. So, it was successful, but time consuming. And when it failed, then we just separated them and moved them back together after they were asleep.

Eventually, I no longer needed to lay down with M. Instead, I would sit between their beds (and read a book to myself) while waiting for them to fall asleep. Again, didn't always work, but we just kept doing this until we had a fairly good success rate.

Now, we're at a point where I don't need to stay in the room after N has fallen asleep. This is some sort of strange thing that may be specific to M and N, but once N is asleep, M seems to feel pressure to be just like his brother. Then he, too, falls asleep with any assistance from me. It works a little bit in the other direction, too.

But as far as closing the door and walking away from two opened eyed boys? Yeah, that's not happening (yet).

We starting putting N and M to bed in the same room about 6 months ago. It's been limitedly successful, so I guess maybe you might want to ignore this, but here was our technique:

We have two regular twin beds in there, one for each boy. M's has sides on it so he can't fall out, but he can climb out quite easily. In the beginning, I found I had to stay in there until both of them fell asleep. Sometimes, I would actually lay down with M to keep him under control. 90% of the time this resulted in both of them falling asleep within 20 minutes or soon. So, it was successful, but time consuming. And when it failed, then we just separated them and moved them back together after they were asleep.

Eventually, I no longer needed to lay down with M. Instead, I would sit between their beds (and read a book to myself) while waiting for them to fall asleep. Again, didn't always work, but we just kept doing this until we had a fairly good success rate.

Now, we're at a point where I don't need to stay in the room after N has fallen asleep. This is some sort of strange thing that may be specific to M and N, but once N is asleep, M seems to feel pressure to be just like his brother. Then he, too, falls asleep with any assistance from me. It works a little bit in the other direction, too.

But as far as closing the door and walking away from two opened eyed boys? Yeah, that's not happening (yet).

Must just be the age with Little Elvis, Skyler has been going through an attitude adjustment as well. And by that I mean his attitude stinks. I think we are just getting to the point where our decisions just don't always measure up to his expectations. He's still our awesome little guy, just with a stinker attitude and less gratitude then we are used to. Good luck with rooming the boys together, we tried and completely failed to do that with ours.

gosh, sounds quite stressful over there. very sorry.not sure about the rooming situation, of course, since littlegirl is an only.i will say, though, that when we bought our house ~10 years ago, we noticed that the doorknobs on her door are backwards.locking it on the outside has helped in tantrum situations.

wonder if you could lay down the law with plum and then lock him in after the first warning roam?

About Me

Hi! I'm currently a stay-at-home mom to Little Elvis*(5 years old) and Baby Plum* (2.5 years old) and Cheese Puff* (newborn). They keep me very busy. Thanks for visiting!
*names have been changed to protect the innocent